Sancocho

As tradition built it

Sancocho de siete carnes (serves 8 to 12)

Serves 8 to 12 . 1 hour 25 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 lb beef
• 1 lb goat
• 1 lb pork
• 1 lb chicken
• 1 lb ribs
• 1 lb longaniza
• 1 lb smoked ham bones
• juice of 2 limes lime juice
• 1 tsp, chopped, plus a handful whole stirred in at the end cilantro
• ½ tsp oregano
• 1 tbsp, crushed garlic
• 1½ tsp, plus more to taste salt
• 2, cut into pieces corn cobs, cut into pieces
• half a gallon water
• 225g (½ lb), auyama/pumpkin, cut into pieces squash
• 3, green, cut into pieces plantain
• 225g (½ lb) each of ñame, yautía and yuca, peeled and cut into pieces root vegetables
• some, grated raw plantain pulp, for natural thickening
• to serve white rice, avocado and lime, to serve

Method

1. Marinate the beef, goat, pork, chicken, ribs, longaniza and smoked ham bones 30 to 60 minutes in lime juice, cilantro, oregano, garlic and salt.
2. Brown the meat, then add the chicken, ribs, sausage, ham bones and corn cobs cut into pieces, and cook 2 minutes.
3. Add half a gallon of water and bring to the boil.
4. Add squash, plantain and root vegetables, including some grated raw plantain pulp for natural thickening, and simmer covered roughly 45 minutes until everything is tender and the broth has thickened on its own.
5. Serve with white rice, avocado and lime.

Notes

Sancocho de siete carnes is described in one Dominican source as more an aspiration than a common practice, the platonic ideal of sancocho, reserved for the most solemn and prosperous occasions rather than a Tuesday dinner. The everyday version most households actually cook is simpler: beef and chicken, or chicken alone.

One hard rule recurs across every source: no potato, no pasta, no tomato sauce, no sweet potato, any of which marks a sancocho as not really sancocho at all.

What a modern chef changes

Seven proteins, cooked to seven different points

Method

1. Cook each meat separately sous vide, at the temperature suited to that specific cut, rather than boiling seven different proteins together to the lowest common denominator of doneness, then reduce the reserved bones and trim into the actual simmering broth.
2. Clarify that broth through a chinois into something close to a genuine consommé, poured over the vegetables and sous vide meats only at the point of serving rather than muddying together for the full 45 minutes.
3. Cook the squash separately and blend a portion of it back into the broth with a high-power blender for natural body, the same thickening logic the grated raw plantain already performs, made more deliberate and controllable.